Why take up the space on the front page with a useless field? You can't click on it. Replies serves the same purpose as views in that it shows you just how active the thread is. Actually more so. Seriously, who gives a crap that a thread has been viewed 90,000 times if it only has 1000 replies in it. Or if it only has 5 replies and has been viewed 100 times. It isn't clickable so you can't sort by it.

What purpose does it even serve to anyone?

Hell, that could be where you put the date the thread was started.

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